CHRISTMAS CACTUS by Elizabeth Ellenwood(Click on image for larger view)

Elizabeth Ellenwood says, "On June 29, 2014, my mother-in-law took her own life.

She was suffering from a hidden depression and losing her was unlike any emotion I have ever experienced. After her death, I found myself in her home, looking at the things she surrounded herself with daily.

The house where I originally found comfort has been replaced with tangled emotions and memories. My mornings that used to be filled with conversations over breakfast with her have been reduced to exploring the things that she left behind.

This loss sparked a new practice for me as a photographer towards examining personal effects in recognizable, intimate, interior spaces. The camera became an extension of my field of vision, allowing me to appreciate and analyze the ethereal belongings anchored in time.

I focus on the delicate trinkets lining the window sills collecting dust and the dying house plants while thinking of the internal struggle she was going through. It pains me to see the physical representation of life and death in one pot of soil; half struggling to exist while the other withers away. My images are a meditation of my memories of her, each one clinging to the reflections of the past."

Elizabeth Ellenwood is a photo-based artist currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at The University of Connecticut.

She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from The New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2010. After her undergraduate degree she lived in Boston where she worked as a darkroom technician for Panopticon Imaging as well as an assistant for architectural photographer Peter Vanderwarker.

Elizabeth has exhibited in national museums, galleries and universities, including recent solo shows at the Sharon Arts Center and The Danforth Museum. She was a finalist in the 7th Edition of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards in 2015 and just received the 2018 Gloriana Gill Art Award in Photography from The University of Connecticut.

HAND CARVER CROSS AND LAMP by Elizabeth Ellenwood(Click on image for larger view)

INSTALLATION VIEW by Elizabeth Stone(Click on image for larger view)

Elizabeth Stone says of her series, '40 Moons', "Carl Sagan, astronomer and astrophysicist, reminds us that humans have evolved to wonder and to understand that we are actually “starstuff pondering the stars, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is a prerequisite to survival.”

I hope to bridge the intensely personal with the universal by creating images that contemplate human existence in relation to our biological origin in the cosmos.

Science has taught us that the gravitational pull of the moon tugs on the surface of our big, blue oceans until its surface rises up and outward.

Mythology and astrology has taught us that the moon is a symbol of subtlety, a luminary that provides light through reflection. The moon waxes and wanes, shifting and progressing through a cycle of light and dark.

A waning moon illustrates the ideas of release and contemplation where a waxing moon can represent growth. A new moon speaks of a rebirth and a full moon is symbolic of the height of power and the peak of clarity.

My mom had Parkinson’s disease and dementia associated with this illness. Her disease progressed and like the cycles of the moon waxed and waned. As her death neared, she reflected more light. It is my hope that she reached a level of acuity and peace with her final breath.

40 Moons was created to illustrate the last 40 months of my mom’s life. I photographed her daily records, some 3200 pages in notebooks. The words were written by her caregivers. They described the gentle patterns of her days, punctuated with laughter, hallucinations and worry.

Each image is a layered representation of a month, a blueprint to my mom’s existence as she returns to the stars."

Visual artist Elizabeth Stone explores perception, mark making and the passage of time by combining her study of photography and drawing with biology and digital technology.

The duality of art and science is a strong influence and she frequently looks to the natural environment as a point of departure when considering her own place ​in the world and the marks she makes. Influenced by artists as diverse as Harry Callahan, Cy Twombly and Agnes Martin, she uses a strict practice to push what is expected of the photographic medium.

Stone’s studies of place and passage of time typically extends for years before she produces a ​portfolio of limited edition prints. She is grateful for the many artist in residence fellowships that she has been awarded which provide her with concentrated focus for creating original work while engaging in stimulating intellectual dialog with other artists.

Stone's work has been exhibited in art museums and galleries across the country and her images are held in both private and corporate collections. She lives and works in rural Montana where the sky is indeed big and the grass tall.

Ellen Jantzen says of her series, 'Losing Reality; Reality of Loss' "How does one experience loss? What does loss look like?

Catastrophic losses usually have a face; think war photos, photos from the World Trade Center, crashes of various sorts but I am interested in personal loss.

I have always been interested in alternate states of reality, but looking over my last few series, those initiated and completed since moving to the Midwest from California, I see that I am also dealing with "loss" in some form; loss of friends, home, youth, and the ultimate loss, loss of life. Death transforms us; reality shifts, but to what?

I am intrigued with how a person adapts to losses in their lives; how they are absorbed by events and changed; how they experience loss. I set about to address these issues through a photographic photosynthesis in this body of work; choosing photography as the medium to help me reveal reality while at the same time transform that reality to reflect a loss.
In these images, I have placed my husband (Michael) in various environments where a loss of some sort has recently occurred. Some of the losses were very specific and personal and some were of a general, universal nature reflected in an inner state of anguish and eventual acceptance."

Ellen Jantzen was born and raised in St. Louis Missouri. Her early college years were spent obtaining a degree in graphic arts; later emphasizing fine art.

Ellen spent two years at FIDM (the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) in downtown Los Angeles. Here, she obtained her advanced degree in 1992. After a few years working in the industry, including several years at Mattel Toy Company as a senior project designer, she became disillusioned with the corporate world and longed for a more creative outlet. Having been trained in computer design while at Mattel, Ellen continued her training on her own using mostly Photoshop software.

As digital technology advanced and the newer cameras were producing excellent resolution, Ellen found her perfect medium. It was a true confluence of technical advancements and creative desire that culminated in her current explorations in photo inspired art using both a camera to capture staged assemblages and a computer to alter and manipulate the pieces. Ellen has been creating works that bridge the world of prints, photography and collage.

GOLD MEDAL AWARD, in the San Francisco International Photography Exhibition, curated by Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography... for my piece "Let The Others Follow"

HONORABLE MENTION, in Natural World exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography for my photo “Harmonic Progression”

HONORABLE MENTION, in The Life/Framer Beauty in Life exhibition for my photo “Remaining a Mystery”
2013

HONORABLE MENTION, in The Texas Photographic Society's 26th Annual Members' Only show for my photo "Reaching The In-between"

WINNER, Landscape Section, in the Spring Awards at The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards

WINNER OF PX3, Prix de la Photographie, Paris awarded First Prize in category Fine Art, for the series "Transplanting Reality; Transcending Nature".... chosen from thousands of entries from 85 countries.

Recent Invitational Exhibitions

2017
THE HAND MAGAZINE's EXHIBITION,
OVERVIEW_2017, Group exhibition at the Bruno David Gallery, Clayton Missouri. June 24 -
August 12
FOTOGRAFICA BOGOTA, 7th International Biennial of Photography; Theme "Territories" at FOTOMUSEO, May. I am the featured artist.

"Mudras", opening July 7th at Leedy Voulkos Art
Center in Kansas City, MO. The show will run through August.
GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY, http://griffinmuseum.org/show/disturbing-the-spirits/
2016

2014
ART:314, at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis Missouri, November 14.
ELLEN JANTZEN, solo exhibition at Fontbonne University Fine Arts Gallery, St. Louis Missouri, August 29 - September 26
PORTRAIT/PROCESS Exhibition, at the International Photography Hall of Fame and Musuem, St. Louis Missouri, June 19-Sept 28.
OVERVIEW_2014, at the Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis Missouri, May 9 - June 21st
PROJECT ROOM, at the Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis Missouri.
PHOTO LA, featured in the Susan Spiritus Gallery booth, January 16-19
INCOGNITO, fund raising exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica CA. 04/26

Emily Belz says, "Forward From Where We Came is a series of digital color photographs taken in three houses: my husband’s childhood home, the home my parents shared until my father’s death, and my current home in Cambridge MA.

This two-year project is an inquiry into the immaterial aspects of inheritance. As I photograph I think about the lives lived in these homes, and the stories that survive. Many of the images bear traces of the people who occupy, or occupied, these spaces: hairpins, a handprint on a chalkboard, a piece of paper taped to the wall about to fall down.

I investigate these intangibles through the language of the lens."

Emily Belz is a photographer and educator based in Cambridge, MA. Her work focuses on domestic still lifes, and many of her images bear traces of the people who occupy, or occupied, these spaces: hairpins, a handprint on a chalkboard, a piece of paper taped to the wall about to fall down."

Belz has exhibited her photographs both regionally and nationally. She was the recipient of a 2014 artist grant from the Cambridge Arts Council, and a 2015 Critical Mass Finalist.

Belz holds a BA in photography and art history from Hampshire College (1997), an MA in art and design education from the Rhode Island School of Design (2009), and an MFA from the New Hampshire Institute of Art (2017). She teaches classes and workshops at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA.

When not making photographs she can be found sailing with her husband and young son, and chasing the light.Exhibition History:Exhibition Record

Emma Sywyj says, " My artwork aims to capture and show life at it’s most vibrant & exciting.

The photographs I take encourage people to see the intricacies & beauty beyond the everyday. My artwork is often centered around my immediate environment and cultural identity. I celebrate culture in all its varied forms all over the world. I have photographed Europe and Asia capturing these countries and cultures as I experience them.

My work encourages viewers to feel awe and joy in the travelers quest and the rewards that experiencing other cultures can bring whilst developing my own cultural identity through photography.

I have been an artist for 14 years, 5 of those years I was based in London whilst studying photography at the Camberwell College of Arts at the UAL. From there I received a BA Honours in Photography and a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design.

I have exhibited my artwork internationally in the US in New York, LA & San Francisco and Athens in Greece and Budapest in Hungary and exhibited nationally in the UK and London several times where I currently live and work. I have also been published in several independent art magazines in the UK and exhibited my video art work in international film festivals around the globe."

CV:

Live and works in London, UK

b.1986, Nottingham, UK

Group Exhibitions

2017 GOLDTAPPED, The Newbridge Project, Newcastle upon Tyne

2017 The (Accidental) Marks Made While Making Art, Cultivate (on-line exhibition), London

Gary Beeber says, "The images I’ve chosen for this call represent grief to me on different levels.

"Wall of Death, Dachau” was where prisoners were lined up, face to the wall, and shot. “After the show, after the season” is about time passing, lives ended.

“Abandoned pool, nobody enjoys it now” is about abandonment and death of the people who once lived and enjoyed this small decorative pool."

Gary Beeber is an award-winning American photographer/filmmaker who has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe. Solo exhibitions include two at Generous Miracles Gallery NYC and "Personalities" (summer, 2017) at Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.

Beeber’s work has also been included in juried exhibitions throughout the country. Among Fortune 500 companies who collect his work are Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Goldman Sachs and Chase Bank.

ON PASSING A by Gregg EvansHONORABLE MENTION20x30" Archival Pigment Print, 2015.(Click on image for larger view

Gregg Evans says, "I began working on A Setting Sun a few years ago shortly after turning 31, at a residency program in Upstate New York.

I remember feeling my age, the oldest among a group who were only a few years out of school, like a chaperone making sure everyone was six inches apart at a high school dance. I started making portraits of everyday objects from my day to day life, focusing on things which were often meant to be thrown away but would never really decay, or items recently bought at the store which somehow already looked dated; items which functioned as contemporary artifacts.

Finding my Facebook feed suddenly cluttered with pictures of toddlers and announcements of first houses, I began thinking about my photographs in terms of aging, impermanence, and the passage of time. What do we leave behind? How will we be remembered?"

Gregg Evans is an artist working in Brooklyn, NY. He holds an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago and a BFA in photography from the State University of New York at Purchase.

Among other exhibitions, he has shown at the Aperture Gallery; New York, The Griffin Museum of Photography; Boston, White Columns; New York, and as part of the Pingyao Photography Festival in Pingyao, China.
CV:

It had been over a year since we had seen each other. Three months earlier I had consciously decided, for the first time, not to call him on Father's Day.

I remember my dad as being compassionate. He cared for people and animals, he taught me how to change the oil in my car, and he was always singing. But his alcoholism and drug use had become so intense that there wasn't a time, morning or night, that I could call him when he wouldn't be intoxicated. I couldn't figure out how to communicate with him anymore, so I stopped.

A Room for the Pain is an intimate and unique look at the current overdose crisis told through a new lens. It is the story of the loss of my dad, and of the confusing and layered emotions that come with grieving a death caused by illicit drug use.

I turned to film and double exposures—photographic materials and techniques that physically and mentally slow me down, and focused on objects, mood, and colour.

Instead of showcasing people injecting drugs, dishevelled and on the streets, A Room for the Pain offers a counter-narrative to what is commonly perceived as addiction. Coming from a place of empathy and compassion, I am documenting the places my Dad and I visited when I was a kid, my trip to spread his ashes, and the people he was close to.

This approach is intended to guide people towards thinking about drug use through a lens of harm reduction and human rights. Ultimately, I hope it will spark conversations that push the boundaries about the controversial decriminalization of drug use.

There is no doubt that there is a current public health crisis of overdose in Canada and the United States, but little is being done to actively stop it.

The Office of the Chief Coroner of British Columbia reported a 46% increase in illicit drug overdose deaths in 2017 from 2016, and The National Centre for Health Statistics reported in 2016 that the opioid crisis is linked to a two year drop in life expectancy among United States citizens.

According to The World Health Organization stigma is a major cause of discrimination which contributes to less access to harm reduction and other health services. Despite continued scientific evidence that proves medication and harm reduction treatments significantly contribute to fewer illicit drug-related deaths, stigma and moral judgement prevent these life-saving options to be supported by policymakers. I believe the only way to overcome this crisis is to reduce stigma by sharing more stories from the people behind the statistics."

Jackie Dives explores themes of identity and womanhood through the medium of digital and analog photography. Self-taught, Dives began taking photographs as a way to deal with her experience living with anxiety and depression. While working as a doula she began photographing women giving birth and this led to her interest in documenting social justice issues through the lens of the female gaze.

Her work has been published internationally, including in Canadian Geographic, The Tyee, VICE, The Globe and Mail, and Maclean's.

CV

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2017 Slow Like a Bruise, Quick Like Hunger | The Playground – Vancouver, B.C.
Photographs selected from 30 rolls of film that I had shot over 20 years but had not developed until 2017. I used the snapshots as a way to open a dialogue about anxiety and depression, as the photos were diaristic, never really intended to be on display, and therefore an innocent and honest reflection of my experience living with mental health issues.

Jake Mosher says, "I believe that for those of us who climb the mountain, cross the river, and look around the bend, the world we find there is still a wonderful thing to see."

Mosher grew up in Northern Vermont, not far from the Canadian border and has lived in Montana for the past 23 years. He has worked as a miner, logger, substitute school teacher, prize fighter, novelist, and photographer.

His photos have won awards from The Smithsonian and the National Wildlife Federation, been featured in galleries, and many magazines. With a focus on the natural world and its rapidly disappearing wilder places, Mosher tries to show that so much around us all is worth preserving.

DECEMBER 23 by Jared RaglandDecember 23, 2015, 4:44 p.m., before our last Christmas together.SECOND PLACE(Click on image for larger view)

Jared Ragland says of his work, "As an homage to Alfred Stieglitz, the father of modern photography and creator of the renowned series of cloud pictures he first titled Songs of the Sky and later came to call Equivalents, I created a project-specific Instagram account in which I photographed and posted a picture of the sky nearly every day for an entire year.

Just as Steiglitz’s cloud pictures were imbued with a symbolist aesthetic, and over time became increasingly abstract equivalents of his own experiences, thoughts, and emotions, so too did my pictures assume symbolic weight and personal meaning as the year passed.

Shortly after beginning the project on the Spring 2015 Equinox, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the act of making these images quickly took on a kind of liturgical significance. Each picture became a brief meditation, a prayer, for mom as I marked the passage of another day and considered the nuances of light, space, form and texture overhead. The series includes images made on the day she was diagnosed and the days we spent together at home and in the hospital. They mark the day she died, the day she was buried, and the difficult days that followed."

The entire series can be seen at instagram.com/eequivalentss.
Jared Ragland is a fine art and documentary photographer and former White House photo editor.

He is the photo editor of National Geographic Books’ "The President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office" and has worked on assignment for NGOs in the Balkans, the former Soviet Bloc, East Africa and Haiti. In 2015 Jared was named one of TIME Magazine’s “Instagram Photographers to Follow in All 50 States” and in 2017 was awarded an Alabama State Council on the Arts fellowship.

His work has been featured by Forbes, The Oxford American, and The New York Times and he has exhibited internationally with recent shows at Candela Books + Gallery in Richmond, Va., the In/Out Transylvania Foto Festival in Cluj, Romania, The National Geographic Society, Birmingham Museum of Art SHIFT space, Huntsville Museum of Art, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Mobile Museum of Art, Rayko Photo, the Los Angeles Center of Photography, Click! Photography Festival, and Filter Photo.

Jared is an alumnus of LaGrange College and a graduate of Tulane University with an MFA in Photography. He resides in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

For more information, vist jaredragland.com follow @jaredragland on Instagram and Twitter.

Jessica Paullus says, "My father died suddenly almost four years ago now.

The three images here are from an ongoing project where I address questions of what happens when we die, how is our memory of our loved one changed by their death and how death impacts the living or those left behind."

Paullus is predominantly self-taught and has been photographing since the age of ten. She redirected her career focus to pursuing photography as an art and profession several years ago after the sudden death of her father.

Jessica specializes predominantly in portraiture, conceptual and documentary photography and has a strong interest in documenting the diverse range of the human experience and emotion.

www.jessicapaullus.com

REMEMBERING 1 by Jessica Paullus(Click on image for larger view)

Paullus says, "Remembering: My father was a school teacher. I am looking at an album of school pictures of him through the years. Being a teacher was a huge part of his identity and is how many people remember him. I had him for Spanish class in the ninth grade and have fond memories of harassing him in class.

Some days I would raise my hand and ask for lunch money in the middle of class.

Other days I would whisper to my seatmates that he was going to trip over the transparency cord and it would inevitably happen.

My dad was a bit of a clutz/absent-minded professor at times.

​Or we would do obnoxious things like throw paper wads at each other while his back was turned. It was all in good fun. He had a great sense of humor and had to try hard not to laugh at our antics."

WRESTLING WITH GRIEF by Jessica Paullus(Click on image for larger view)

EMPTY CAGE by JP Terlizzi(Click on image for larger view)

JP Terlizzi says of his series, 'Mother', "The course of a life can be determined by a single, sharp moment; one that is inevitable and ultimately essential.

A moment of trauma, setback or challenge reverberates for years to come, daring us to keep moving forward, and shaping our capacity to connect and flourish.

My mother was devastated by my father’s infidelity, which led to a bitter divorce that had a profound impact on our family. As I witnessed her life unravel, I thought about strength of character, and began to wonder whether it was an innate quality or a personal choice.

How is it that some emerge from the most difficult of moments better and stronger, while others find comfort in solitude, anger, jealousy and despair?

It’s been over 45 years since that traumatic event, yet my mother has never fully recovered nor has she felt the need to seek professional help for her mental stability. Instead, I witnessed a woman who thrived on self-pity and detached herself from loved ones. As a result, her extreme actions and behavior were a detriment to the entire family."

Mother explores the emotional and psychological terrain surrounding the ending of relationships and the loss of personal identity.

As a victim of a tattered family scarred by emotional trauma, I use photography as a means to reconnect with my mother and respond to a relationship that was non-existent for over two decades.

For me, the process was one of personal discovery, but more importantly, it provided closure. A therapeutic process emerged where the feelings of sorrow, disappointment and anger resurfaced, and I was able to tame those feelings through acceptance and forgiveness."

JP Terlizzi is a visual storyteller who uses photography to explore themes of memory, relationship, and identity. Drawing inspiration from his personal experiences he captures moments that convey narratives—whether the story is a framed moment that reveals something about family and home, or a poetic interpretation of a fading reality, the feeling of loss and detachment are recurring themes in his work.

Born and raised in the farmlands of Central New Jersey, JP currently lives in Manhattan.

His career spans thirty plus years as creative director for a boutique agency specializing in retail design. He earned a BFA in Communication Design at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and has studied photography at the International Center of Photography in New York and Maine Media College.

His work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad including shows at The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO, Umbrella Arts Gallery, New York, NY, Soho Photo Gallery, New York, NY, The Griffin Museum, Winchester, MA, Tilt Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX, Project Basho Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, Municipal Heritage Museum, Malaga, Spain, and The Berlin Foto Biennale, Berlin, Germany, among others. He was named a Photolucida 2016 Critical Mass Finalist for his series Mother and was a 2015 Critical Mass Finalist for his series Hunter’s Calling which was also selected for the C4FAP Portfolio ShowCase Vol. 9 and ONWARD Compé '16. His work has been featured in PDN, Lenscratch, L'oeil de la Photographie, All About Photo, The Photo Review, F-Stop and Abridged Magazine.

CIRCLE II #1 A GIRL WHO SACRIFICED HER LIFE FOR THE LIFE by Jung S Kim(Click on image for larger view)

Jung S. Kim says, "‘Circle II’ series is a personal narrative inspired by negative emotional experiences and feelings that I faced in my childhood.

After my parents got divorced, I had to live with my aunt, a Buddhist shaman with severed sculptures of a Buddha, a monk and a spirit of mountain surrounded with primitive and colors of the ritual paintings on the alter in her room. I was a little girl in this unstable environment, and these unfamiliar and shocking scenes horrified me. But on the other hand, the colors of the paintings and the figures of the sculptures left a big impression on my soul. Hidden in my world, in quiet and melancholy mood, I would adopt and replace different characters in the Korean fairy tale with myself and dream their happy lives to escape from reality.

In this series, I bring the Korean folk tales and legends into my work and replace the fictional characters with myself. The personalities of the characters are reinterpreted from a subjective point of view. So their personalities are intentionally twisted and exaggerated.

I portray myself as a goblin, or an angel, a Taoist magician or a stepmother like a character of Cinderella.

In retrospect, I see it as a way of overcoming my traumatic experiences while also exploring and developing my own sense of self at the same time."

Jung S Kim was born and raised in Seoul, Korea & majored in Photography in Chung-Ang University in her mother country. After immigrating to the US in 2002, she has continued to build her career as a photographic artist.

Currently, nationally and internationally her work has been shown at Providence Center for Photographic Arts, Filter Photo Festival, Humble Art Foundation, The Center for Fine Art Photography, The Griffin Museum of Photography and New York Foundation for the Art, The 3rd Asian Women Photographer Showcase Obscura Festival, and also Daegu Photo Biennale.

She had been invited to attend The New York Times-Lens New York Portfolio Review and her work was chosen for inclusion in “Photography NOW 2014” at The Center for Photography at Woodstock.

Her work can be seen in the collections of The Center for Photography at Woodstock in New York, FNAC (Fonds National d’Art Contemporian) in France, Luciano Benetton Collection in Italy, and Daelim Museum, Samtan Art Mine Museum in Korea.

CIRCLE II #17 A GIRL WHO WAS MURDERED BY HER STEPMOTHER by Jung S. Kim(Click on image for larger view)

CIRCLE II #2 A GIRL WHO PLAYED AND DANCED FOR HIGH SOCIETY(Click on image for larger view)

ALFONSO'S HAND ON CASKET by Justin Aversano(Click on image for larger view)

Justin Aversano says, "These images represent the irreparable grief that overtook me during the time of my mothers passing in January, 2014.

Photography helped me heal and cope with my loss; it is a therapeutic tool to see the truth in light and understand what life is after death. These images are not merely a mournful memory, they are documents of a mood from my human experience; grief."

Justin Aversano is an artist and curator working within the New York art scene. He has organized a number of shows in New York City, as well as public art exhibitions around the country.

Justin is also the owner and operator of Brooklyn Lightroom, a photo finishing, consulting, and scanning studio located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Additionally, Justin is the founder of Artists Trading Art, and the co-founder and creative director of SaveArtSpace, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing community art to public spaces.

A humanist and a social entrepreneur, Justin connects his art with the world around him through capturing moments, faces, and communities that surround him, bringing them together through the lens of his camera.

CV

Education

Received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts Photography Program, 2014.

Saveartspace is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art organization founded in 2015, that transforms billboard advertisement space into public art installations. The mission of Saveartspace is two part: enrich local communities through public beautification and, foster creative culture by giving artists the opportunity to use our platform to display their work. Saveartspace works within the community, partnering with local and regional businesses to convert these languishing spaces into works of public art.

Brooklyn Lightroom — Owner and Operator, Bushwick, Brooklyn (November 2014-present)
Brooklyn Lightroom is a digital imaging lab servicing the artist community. Founded in late 2014, Brooklyn Lightroom offers professional fine art, studio, and event photography, large format printing, precision scanning, as well as creative consulting and an array of cross-media project services.

Artists Trading Art is a nonprofit art organization founded in 2017, that empowers artists to network, as well as exhibit, and trade artwork in a multitude of gallery settings. Artists Trading Art mission is simple: we foster communities founded upon the idea to support each other's creative energy and inspiration by sharing, trading, and bartering their art with one another. Artists Trading Art works within the local art community of New York City, partnering with local art spaces to provide new opportunities for artists to gather, connect, and exhibit their art.

Kev Filmore says of his series, "21 Magnolia Rd. is my childhood story about being raised by seemingly successful, but mentally ill parents in the 1960’s.

My mixed media work illustrates my search for the truth about my upbringing, which despite a happy facade, was riddled with addiction, sexual abuse and emotional neglect.

I realized early on that life did not have to be miserable. I had two worlds growing up, the one at home and the other one waiting just outside our front door and in my imagination.

I learned to see beauty where shadows loomed. Examining the stuff of my childhood has revealed, reinforced, and left some questions still unanswered. I put the past back together, along with myself in the process.

Telling stories about my family over the years, people would always ask,
“How did you turn out so normal?”
“Every company needs a worrier and your mine, Mary Kevin!”

My father was a big exec in the music business and tried to run our family the same way.

He appeared to know everything and was a charismatic liar. Even at nine, I knew I was being handed a raw deal. My Mom described living with him as walking on eggshells and we ran like the dickens when we heard the garage door go up!

People had no idea what went on in our house; and, most of the time, neither did we. My Mom was an artist who rarely made art and when she did, she was only fleetingly happy due to anxiety, depression, alcoholism and a myriad of physical ailments. I loved her very much and always tried my best to help.

Early on, I worked hard to become a good artist. I relied on art to escape the day to day. We were surrounded by dichotomies; creative brilliance wove its way through lies and stories. Beauty and ugliness were bed-partners and emotional chaos resulted. My parents seemed as good as they were bad. I was the oldest girl of four children and put in charge of the clan.

Rebelling against the misery and experiencing the sheer pleasure of making art has always been my lifeline. Art was my ticket to art school and adulthood where I have been left to ponder my beginnings.

Collaging together my past, I tell my childhood story using Polaroid’s, B&W prints, drawings, artifacts, and recreations from memory to build my narrative.

Mental illness was only whispered about when I was growing up. 21 Magnolia Rd. is my survival story of family love and hate, alongside the power of the arts to heal. In attempting to paint the picture my way, I find the strength to be myself, and the confidence to make new work."
"I was just lucky, I guess…"

Filmore began her lifelong love of exploring processes that mix media while earning a BFA from University of the Arts in 1976 for illustration.

She was featured in the New York Times, PDNEDU and PDN’s 2010 Annual for her work and teaching. Her Dreamers series received a 2005 Golden Light Award and her Abandoned series earned second place Portfolio from PIEA in 2009. Ms. Filmore was a Nationally Honored Educator in 2016, and was awarded a Vivian Pomex Sabbatical for 2017-2018.

Images from her current series, 21 Magnolia Rd. have been selected by jurors Marvin Heiferman, Cig Harvey, Hamidah Glasgow, Gordon Stettinius, Ashby Nickerson, J.Sybylla Smith and Brian Paul Clamp to be included in exhibitions at Garrison Art Center, Tilt Gallery, The Griffin Museum, Candela Gallery and on The Curated Fridge, 2014 through 2018.

The project was featured in October 2017 issue #18 of The HAND Magazine and is in the permanent PhotoPlace Online Gallery for Myths, Legends, and Dreams, juror Amy Holmes-George. Juror and curator Paula Tognarelli selected work from her Abandoned series for the Tree Talk exhibit at The Griffin Museum at Lafayette City Center in Boston through May 2018.

Ms. Filmore is thrilled to share that she will be exhibiting her series 21 Magnolia Rd., opening April 7 and on view through May 6 2018, at Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson NY.

​Image 'Got Out Alive' - When I left for art school I knew I would never live at home again. My art work had rescued me and I was finally free. The longing to have a sense of home and connection continues to this day, over forty years later. But, I am still glad I got out!

LITTLE NANA IS GONE by Kev Filmore(Click on image for larger view)

Little Nana Is Gone - My mother came home from the hospital and my grandmother died in the bathroom getting ready to go home to her house. When I came home from kindergarten, she was gone forever. I never really had anyone like her in my life again.

VISITING MOM IN THE HOSPITAL AGAIN by Kev Filmore(Click on image for larger view)

Visiting Mom In the Hospital - My mother started going to the hospital when we were very young and I remember visiting with her mother, Little Nana. She had come to take care of us and I was crazy about her. I loved her clothes, decor, strength and calm smiling face. Most of all she made me feel safe and loved.

BED 1 by Kristen Emack(Click on image for larger view)

Kristen Emack says of her series, 'You are Not a Story I Want to Tell', "On April 10th, 2017, I removed the Guardian Angel clip from above the driver's seat of my Honda, and dropped it in my bag.

My best friend Gina gave it to me 20 years ago to keep me and my passengers safe. The very next day, Gina, and her beloved black lab, died in a fatal car accident when she unintentionally drove off a cliff and landed on the edge of the San Miguel River on a mattress of twigs, rocks and feathers.

This is a work in progress as I accommodate the nuisances of grief and denial in the face of sudden loss."

Kristen Emack is a photographer and educator who lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds a degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and although she took some undergraduate course work, she is primarily a self-taught photographer.

Kristen has exhibited in group and solo shows in the Greater Boston area and was awarded a Women in Photography grant at Maine Media Workshops. In 2015, Scout Magazine named her Best Photographer in Cambridge. Her work has been published in PDN and Rangefinder, and was recently selected for The Fence; New England Annex, Call and Response: Art as Resistance exhibition hosted by Strange Fire Collective and The Curated Fridge.

Kristen's work also includes two long-term projects that look at childhood, family and visibility.

There were few words that could lighten my burden and the deeply physical hold grief had on me. I was utterly lost. These photographs map my travels with grief and helped me find my way to a new and unimagined life.

I sought images that evoked a clear physical “feeling”—and those feelings began to articulate the emotions and memories that I could not verbally express.

Looking for the right photograph was a journey and the sensation of composing the image was like the recalling of a dream that lies just under the surface as you wake.
These images are populated with organic materials – insect bodies, spider webs, twigs, leaves and moss – that I collected on my daily walks and observed over time.

As they dried and decayed, these scraps of natural detritus twist and curl, culminating in increasingly gestural forms. I cultivated a mode of photographing these materials designed to bring the viewer into a mindset of wonder – an almost vertiginous reframing of natural elements.

I work through the photographic process from the perspective of painterly abstraction, harnessing a visceral fascination with the unseen world. I am interested in how we navigate the unknown and are driven by a sensorial engagement with visual perception, My aim is to produce images that evoke sense memories and somatic responses to the visual worlds which I create."

Laura Williams is originally from Boston, MA and is a multidisciplinary artist; a painter, a photographer, a collagist-textualist-colorist and graphic designer.

Her recent work has a focus on photography and is driven by a sensorial engagement with visual perception–seeking to produce images that evoke sense memories and somatic responses to the visual worlds she creates.
Laura Williams received a BFA from the University of Vermont and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She is now the Art Director for Algonquin Young Readers in Chapel Hill, NC.

MY SISTER'S ROOM APRIL 2015 by Lee Kilpatrick(Click on image for larger view)

Lee Kilpatrick says of this series, 'Photos from A Case Of You', "My sister died at the beginning of 2014 after a short illness.

Her death was unexpected, but not surprising. For the previous 30 years, she had experienced mental health issues and related alcoholism.

When she was 12, her Raggedy Ann doll began telling her that she was worthless and a bad person; around this time she started drinking.

This show spans the second half of her life, including her difficult last eight years. At holiday gatherings, she often exhibited quiet disconnection and unease due to some combination of paranoia, depression, alcohol and mind-clouding medication. She rarely went out in public. These photos show how small her world had become, a situation that, despite my family's hopes, never improved.

In the photos submitted, two of them depict my sister's room; one, shortly after she died, and one about a year later. The first one shows her room in basically the same state it was in when she was taken to the hospital.

The trunk and stool in the foreground of the photo were set up so her cat could get on the high bed. They were pushed out of the way into the position you see them by the paramedics.

The second photo of her room shows it as it appeared about about a year later; my mother had switched almost all the furniture and had removed most of my sister's belongings.

Separately, there is a drawer in my childhood room that contains some clothing my sister received as gifts on her last Christmas that she never wore; the tags are still on them."

Lee Kilpatrick is a fine art photographer and the director of the Washington Street gallery and studios in Somerville, MA. His primary focus is documentary candids in both digital and film.

His work usually depicts people in everyday but intimate situations; the subjects seem to be in their own private worlds, conscious of neither the camera nor themselves. Along with conventional formats, he also uses panoramic photography, presenting a closer view of the subject set in a wide view of the environment.

CV

EDUCATION

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 1991

BS in Computer Science; minor in literature

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Director, Washington Street Gallery, Somerville, MA 2002-present

Responsible for high-level planning and execution of the gallery & studios direction,
structure, events, and maintenance. Leads monthly meetings of the membership at
large, and also the steering committee.

ARTSomerville Artist of the Month January 2006
Panel Discussion, Mary Baker Eddy Library December 2005
Abelardo Morell, Melanie Stetson-Freeman, and Lee Kilpatrick discussed their
photography of everyday life in conjunction with an exhibit of photography of the
Mary Baker Eddy household.

I use anonymous 19th century tintypes which I appropriate and alter. This era strictly delineated the roles of males and females in society. I give each of these women a name commonly used in 19th century, thus giving each an a personal identity."

CV

Exhibitions

2018 The Photography Gala Awards, Women Seen By Women, Runner Up, Series: Antidote
2018 Artless Bastard, Broken Hearts Exhibition, Group Show, De Pere, Wisconsin
2018 The Untitled Space, One Year of Resistance, Group Show, New York, New York

Re: Cleo and CassieThe two images from the series Without deal with the end of a marriage. The loneliness of being one when you are used to two and the feeling of a void in your life. At the same time te images are about the need to be to fill the void and move on.

CLEO WITHOUT by Leslie Sheryll(Click on image for larger view)

Re: Cleo and Cassie
The two images from the series Without deal with the end of a marriage. The loneliness of being one when you are used to two and the feeling of a void in your life. At the same time te images are about the need to be to fill the void and move on.

HATTIE BLUE VOIDS by Leslie Sheryll(Click on image for larger view)

Re: Hattie
As a child my mother would sometimes say she was feeling blue...
A color that refers to a feeling of sadness, melancholy, loneliness, isolation.
The color blue was related to rain in Greek mythology. It was believed that the god Zeus would make it rain when he was sad.
The genre of music referred to as The Blues came to mean agitation or depression. And when Picasso sank into a deep depression he began what was to become known as his Blue Period when the color blue dominates his paintings.

ENERGIES FROM WITHIN 1 by Linda Sandow(Click on image for larger view)

Linda Sandow says about her series, "Energies from Within", "People react uniquely to different kinds and intensities of grief.

But those introspections result in changed energies which are emanated to everyone and everything around us. The extent and levels of those introspective energies and interactions change and determine our trajectory. Our vision and path to our future.

This series “Energies from Within” explores the energies between us and those surrounding us as we resolve our sorrows and move forward. And that new energy propagates to all around us.

We should not let our fear of moving forward in a different light prevent us from following our deepest instinct to a richer life. We can allow our energy and creativity to shine thru."

Linda Sandow is a Fine Art Photographer focusing on infrared, metaphorical and abstract photography. She expressed her artistic talents early, becoming an accomplished musician, playing Principal Flute with the Canadian Opera, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Bolshoi Ballet.

Moving on, she developed more analytically, overseeing software development for traders at 2 major financial institutions. Then she turned to photography.

She studied photography at the International Center for Photography (ICP) in New York but John Paul Caponigro has been her primary influence.

Her photography blends her artistic side with her technological precision. The results are photographs that capture moods and feelings, drawing the viewer into the scene, beyond what is literally there on first hand observation.

In 2017, Linda joined the Artist Roster of Soho Photo Gallery in downtown NYC. She will be exhibiting images from her series "Energies from Within" in 2018.
Ms. Sandow currently lives in New York City where she photographs and exhibits in galleries throughout the Northeast US.

Linda has been selected to exhibit in 30 juried group exhibitions since 2006. She has been published in magazines, developed 2 books and had her images used on two book covers, most recently by the Carolina Academic Press.

Linda holds a bachelor’s degree in Flute Performance from The Juilliard School and an M.B.A. in Finance from N.Y.U. Stern School of Business.

LI Plato says, "I have had a lot of loss in my short life, which has caused me to reflect on what comes after, and the divine.

I have always been captivated by the solitude of nature, and untamed desert and wilderness.

I have a similar connection to places of remembrance and legacy—cemeteries, memorials, and antiquities—as well as spiritual places and places of pilgrimage.

For me, these places provide a connection to what is larger than us during our brief, mortal time on earth. I am also drawn to the textures, patterns, and abstracts found in nature and landscapes. I aspire to capture the wildness and spirit of desolate places, as well as the desolation sometimes found in urban environments. I am recently intrigued by documentary photography and storytelling, and have been photographing political protests and moments.

I am based in the northeast-US, my country of origin. After many decades, however, I still note that I am originally from the west coast.

As a younger person, I traveled the western US deserts with my friend and mentor, a photographer and folklorist. Lee taught me large format photography and darkroom processing, and together we sought high desert vistas, ghost towns, and frontier cemeteries.

These landscapes were a familiar view into rural childhood landscapes in the high desert, and memory, and my first introduction to photography.

I specialize in landscapes, nature, and travel. I am continually inspired by what is around the bend, and spend a lot of time fantasizing about my next walkabout. In the last couple years—and for an assortment of reasons—I have been trying to find inspiration closer to home, and to appreciate the full concept of home, rootedness, and place.

As an avid wanderer, I am always amazed at the multitude of ways people experience life, and how they explain the spiritual world and afterlife. As a former archivist and former chef, I am always intrigued by the experience, social history, and food behind the moments and shots. Thus far, the connection in my work is documenting what is beyond us and larger than us, the interconnectedness of life, and what makes us human."

Lodiza Lepore says, "If a new thought can enter the mind, even for the briefest moment, then change has a chance.

Through this work my aim is to deconstruct the American 'fog' & other fairy tales by exposing a critical view of the actual state of things, to reveal the true nature of human life stripped of pretenses that hide authentic feelings of loneliness, isolation & insecurity. Inspired by the notion that every split second is unique, I seek to expose the extraordinary from the ordinary.

This photographic vision has been featured in several publications, including B & W, The Photo Review & Creative Quarterly and shown in U.S. galleries from coast to coast, including European venues."

TALKING TO MYSELF (BILL AND JANE) by Luke Jordan(Click on image for larger view)

Luke Jordan says, "Talking to Myself: A Conversation with Images Posted to Facebook and Instagram, Prompted by the Occasion of My Mother’s Death.

I try to post images to Instagram and Facebook on a regular basis (phone pics almost exclusively) and I prefer not to write much (if anything at all). These platforms have provoked me in ways that may not have been possible otherwise, by creating threads and grouping images in ways that I might night have imagined. For me, they are a bittersweet reminder and reconstruction of recent events."

Luke Jordan has taught at the University of Kansas since 1988, and currently he is a Lecturer and Academic Program Associate in the Department of Visual Art, KU School of the Arts. He has been an active artist and teacher since receiving a BFA in Art and an MFA in Photography from the University of Michigan, and over the years, his work and effort as an artist and a teacher have become inextricably linked.

His research is concentrated in photography and video, and in making work he has explored a range of issues, media, processes, and technologies. In addition to traditional darkroom and digital processes, his experience includes large format color photography, video installation, alternative/historical printing processes, and pinhole photography; more recently, he has thought a lot about Instagram and the influence Social media are playing in shaping photography.

In addition to teaching, Luke works at the University of Kansas Spencer Museum of Art as a Specialist in Photography/Works of Art on Paper, providing his expertise to the SMA program known as Walk-Ins Welcome Fridays, and consulting on other issues related to photographs and the history of photography. Luke has also been the staff photographer for the KU University Theatre since 1997.

TALKING TO MYSELF (THE LAST TIME I SAW JANE) by Luke Jordan(Click on image for larger view)

TALKING TO MYSELF (THE SUMMER BILL DIED) by Luke Jordan(Click on image for larger view)

FLOWER AT 9.11 MEMORIAL 2016 by Marie Triller(Click on image for larger view)

Marie Triller says, "I documented each 9.11 anniversary at ground zero for a decade and this work culminated in my book Ten Years: Remembering 9.11 (John Isaacs Books, New York, 2011).

My annual pilgrimage became a ritual of documenting the thousands who gathered beyond the fences and barricades of ground zero - there to pay their respects and remember those who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11. To me, they represented millions more who shared their sorrow.

in 2016 I returned to photograph the 15th anniversary of 9.11.

Inside the Memorial on September 11 for the first time (though I have visited other times in recent years), I soon found myself photographing the flowers, not the crowds.

It was a new experience and I responded to it in a way which surprised me and moved me, as well. These were not simply flowers. These were symbols representing families and their pain. Precious memories of a victim's child. Honor and respect from fellow firefighters. As I photographed the flowers which lined the name-filled stretches of granite, I sought to convey these emotions and I discovered that a flower can speak volumes about love, loss and the fleeting wonder of life."

Marie Triller is a photographer residing in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her book, Ten Years: Remembering 9/11 (John Isaacs Books, New York) chronicles a decade of September 11 observances at ground zero. Her work is in the permanent collections of George Eastman House and the National 9/11 Museum & Memorial.

Triller received her MFA in Photography from the State University of New York at New Paltz. She has taught photography at several institutions including Union College, The College of St. Rose and Albany College of Pharmacy.

An actively exhibiting artist for over thirty years, Triller’s work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Her work has been featured online at Your Daily Photograph, AI-AP ProPhotoDaily and Professional Photographer. Triller is a member of WPA (Women’s Photo Alliance, NYC.)

ROSE AT 9.11 MEMORIAL 2016 by Marie Triller(Click on image for larger view)

ROSES AT 9.11 MEMORIAL 2016 by Marie Triller(Click on image for larger view)

MEMENTOS 1 by Marna Bell(Click on image for larger view)

Marna Bell says, "When our memories distort and fade over time we can look to our belongings to help fill in the blanks of our elusive past.

My current series, "Mementos", was inspired while visiting
the home of a childhood friend. The ambience of the morning light illuminated and transformed the precious objects in her home, giving them a new kind of presence.
My series slowly evolved, after visiting estate sales. Photographing heirlooms and personal property of deceased strangers helped me to try to understand loss.
Although these objects and spaces are filled with anonymity and sadness, each object reflects a personal history that was left behind."

Marna Bell is an award-winning American photographer whose work has been featured in international publications, solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries, including Clarion State College, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, Munson Williams Proctor Arts Inst., Utica, NY, and Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, NY. She received a New York State Council of the Arts Grant and a Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation award, and has been featured in Black and White magazine. Her book, “Hudson Past/Perfect” is in Howard Greenberg’s Gallery in New York City. Bell received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Syracuse University in painting.

It is the times you want to huddle away from the world, it is the times you think things can't get worse and you're grieving better times and wondering how things changed with relative quickness, it's loss, always loss, of something or someone, or control. As C.S. Lewis said, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." And that fear compels one to pick up by the bootstraps and grab hold of life."

She is a recipient of a Pushcart Nomination, and is listed under “Notable Stories,” Best American Non-Required Reading for 2007 and 2009. She is recipient of best short story, 2012, Anderbo/Open City prize, for “Her Voices, Her Room.” [list of published photos available]

STAY IN ONE PLACE, THIS PLACE by Martha Clarkson(Click on image for larger view)

WITHOUT NOTICE by Martha Clarkson(Click on image for larger view)

DEAREST JAREK by Mayu Nagaoka(Click on image for larger view)

Mayu Nagaoka says, "I document and archive moments in my daily life. Things I see, people I interact with, the food I eats, and even my pets.

Recording these moments is a practice of collecting and studying. By photographing these quiet moments in my life, with no ulterior motive but to document, I create quiet and honest images."

Mayu Nagaoka is a visual artist who was born in Minneapolis. After taking a few photography courses at a community college, she chose to pursue photography. She moved to Chicago and transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduating, she made her way to Tampa, FL where she lived for five years before taking an opportunity to move to Austin, TX where she now resides.

Michael Joseph's series, 'Lost and Found' is a portrait series that examines the individual souls of lost youth who abandon home to travel around the country by hitchhiking and freight train hopping.

Within their personal journey driven by wanderlust, escapism or a search for transient jobs, they find a new family in their traveling friends. They are photographed on public streets using natural light, in the space in which they are found.

Like graffiti on the walls of the city streets they inhabit and the trains they ride, their bodies and faces become the visual storybook of their lives.

Their clothing is often a mismatch of found items. Jackets, pants and vests are self-made like a patchwork quilt, using fabric pieces of a fellow traveler’s clothing embellished by metal bottle caps, buttons, safety pins, lighter parts, syringe caps, and patches.

The high of freedom however, does not come without consequence. Their lifestyle is physically risky and rampant with substance abuse and deaths resulting from addiction and overdose. As much as their lives are filled with joy they are frequently met with loss.

Each traveler’s story is different, but they are bound by a sense of community. Often unseen and mistaken by their appearances, they are some of the kindest people one might meet. Their souls are open and their gift is time. As one states, “They will give you their time because time is all they have.” And in some cases, in the family they have lost, they have found each other.

Michael Joseph is a street portrait and documentary photographer. Raised just outside of New York City, his inspirations are drawn from interactions with strangers on city streets and aims to afford his audience the same experience through his photographs. His portraits are made on the street, unplanned and up close to allow the viewer to explore the immediate and unseen.

Michael’s project “Lost and Found” has been featured on CNN.com, Vice.com, AllAboutPhoto.com and published in magazines internationally. He has been exhibited nationally, notably at Daniel Cooney Fine Art (New York, NY) in the Aperture Gallery (New York, NY), Project Basho Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) as well as the Rayko Gallery (San Francisco, CA).

He has lectured for Amy Arbus at the International Center of Photography (New York, NY) in portraiture classes at the New England School of Photography (Boston, MA) and taught at the Light Factory (Charlotte, NC).

His portraits are held in the permanent collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houstob, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana and private collections. He is a 2016 Photolucida Top 50 winner, LensCulture Portrait Award Finalist and a recipient of the fellowship in photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Photos - information:
Mo-
"I've been traveling for 5 years going on 6. I'm tired of friends dying and I'm tired of being treated like the scum of earth. I'm probably one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Just because I look like a piece of sh*t, doesn't mean I'm not a piece of gold."

SPOONS II by Michael Joseph(Click on image for larger view)

Spoons II
"My fiance died in my arms three years ago. She was the love of my life... if you're lucky to get one, you know it. She taught me so much. VOID is on my heart because I am faulty hardware.... They should have sent me back to the manufacturer."

MORGAN III by Michael Joseph(Click on image for larger view)

Morgan III
"She was still warm when we got to the hospital. She didn't look like my gorgeous, smiling sister. She had a tube down her throat, a mask on her face. She left us... no more Jessie, no more hugs, no more of her strength, love, smiles, nothing but f#&king memories that are slowly slipping away each day. I lost my sister, best friend and soulmate to a drug. It was a tragic, f#$king preventable accident. Jessie and I left home early this year after our father figure died. Mom told us that she was the sun and I was the moon. We have always been outcasts and partners in crime. I tell people I am different now. When I was around Jessie, I was at home. She was my home."

GRIEF by Michael Manning(Click on image for larger view)

Michael Manning says, "I’ve experienced deep grief several times in my life.

That suffering has been different each time and my process through the grief, the grieving, has changed greatly over time. But I believe there is a shared, deeply common feeling we all experience when we grieve.

In a way all of my art is in some way an attempt at dealing with grief and loss. When I saw the call for images I decided to work with some of that emotional content. These images are the result of that process."

SUFFERING AND WISDOM by Michael Manning(Click on image for larger view)

UNTITLED 10, FROM TAKE ARE OF YOUR SISTER by Molly Lamb(Click on image for larger view)

Molly Lamb says of her series, 'Take Care of Your Sister', "My first recollection of inheriting the belongings of someone in my family is when I was five years old.

Consistently, throughout the years since, I have inherited the belongings of most of my family. This history permeates my experiences and perspectives, and it also now ends with my life. When I pass away, all that I hold dear - my stories, my belongings, and those of my family - will dissolve into a world that does not speak the language of our nuances.

Take Care of Your Sister is a meditation on the emotional resonance of loss, family history, and family future through the land – a landscape that is grounded in reality yet also distorted through time and displacement. It is the third chapter in a longer, ongoing narrative and was inspired by visiting the Mississippi Delta where my father grew up and where my brother and I spent time with our grandparents when we were very young. When my father was a child there, he was asked to take care of his younger sister. When I was a child, the last words my father said to my brother were, “Take care of your sister.”

Without a family home to return to, the landscape becomes the place that harbors history and memory. The land engulfs and it provides respite. It haunts nightmares and it eases them away. I now live far away from the landscapes that make sense to me and give substance to my past, but I look for them here anyway. And I always return to them."

Moths circling and circling
uneasy yellow light
suspended
in speckled black
below the stars
and cicada silence.
Strong wind on the bridge –
dirt in the air, in my hair,
in the shades of darkness
where the light laps against
the water’s whirling
solid,
where they caught
moths
when they were young.
That is not cotton.
He is not him.
Fields
rows
divides
dirt
cracks
where there is no rain.
Thick summer
clings to my skin
quietly urging
its way into my bones.
Ghosts in my eye
under the shroud cry
leave me here no more.

Molly Lamb holds an MFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a BA in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Her work has been exhibited nationally, most recently at Rick Wester Fine Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Danforth Art Museum, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Photographic Resource Center. In 2016, she was selected for the Critical Mass Top 50 and in 2015, she was named one of Photo District News’ 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch as well as one of LensCulture’s 50 Emerging Talents.

Her work has been featured in Photograph, Musée Magazine, Oxford American, Harper’s Magazine, Aint-Bad Magazine, Photo District News, and the Boston Globe, among others. She is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art, New York.

Solo Exhibitions

2017
Ghost Stepping, The Garner Center for Photographic Exhibitions at the New England School of Photography, Boston, Massachusetts